Rise of Heroes

by Hayden Thorne

  I glanced at Dad and found him curled up on the floor like an armadillo in denim and cotton. I recovered his hat from where it had rolled then gently nudged him. He finally raised his head and stared at me, his eyes bulging.

  “Are you okay, Dad?” I asked, giving his hat back.

  “I am,” he said, gasping, and we both slowly crawled out. “How about you?”

  “Yeah,” I said as I sat down on the bench because my knees just buckled from under me. “I’m fine.” I knew I wasn’t, though. I could barely feel him sit beside me as he tried to recover from his own shock. I stared around me, unseeing, before looking down at my hands, which rested limply on my lap. The friendship bracelet couldn’t be seen in the murkiness, but the thin gold thread could. It appeared to glow softly, sometimes fading from sight.

  The cops arrived within moments. They swarmed into the mall, waving flashlights and brandishing guns.

  Chapter 18

  “Violent Showdown in Downtown Vintage!” the newspaper’s headlines screamed the following morning.

  We sat at the table, staring at Dad—waiting with utmost patience as he tried to sort through the news so he could summarize it for us. Our breakfast was fast congealing on our plates. It was a good thing I didn’t bother to mess around with my eggs with blue food coloring. I’d have the nasty experience of seeing over-easy eggs turn cold and hard, and somehow blue quasi-fossilized eggs sounded really disgusting.

  “Mannequin Man caught the Trill red-handed,” Dad presently announced from behind the paper. “Apparently the Trill was about to booby-trap the subway.”

  Liz whistled. “Damn. With the aerial train still out, that would’ve been a real mess. Now I’m wondering if all those other jobs he tried to pull were just for practice, or if they were diversions.” She paused and glanced at me. “Like mixing the important and the trivial together to throw people off guard.”

  “Sure,” I mumbled, swirling my spoon around my cereal bowl. I could’ve colored the milk blue, but I was pretty moody that morning.

  “You know, Eric, I just realized that you keep getting yourself mixed up in these things. Were you born under a bad sign or something?”

  “Yeah—something like ‘sucks to be me’ or, like, born under the sign of the loser.”

  Mom clucked. “Now, now, honey. Don’t be such a teenager. You know you’re not a loser. Now have some orange juice and take your vitamins before I get mad and ground your butt.”

  “So Mannequin Man gets the Trill,” Dad continued, “while his partner—that superkid—rounds up all the Trill’s thugs. Did it pretty fast, too—guess that’s his superpower. Speed. Too bad that Bailey reporter can’t corner him the way she’s able to corner Mannequin Man sometimes.”

  “He’s too quick for her.” Liz sniggered. “Hey, Eric, can you imagine what kind of name she’ll be coming up with for him? Something like Perky Feet Boy, maybe. Or Flying Feet Kid. Or Speedy Gonzalez—but that’d be copyright infringement, wouldn’t it? Speedy Kidzalez. How’s that?”

  “Pathetic.”

  “You’re a real charmer this morning,” she said before turning her attention back to Dad.

  “The Trill got away,” he said, to a chorus of Awww from Mom and Liz. “His goons are behind bars—hopefully for good—”

  “And hopefully radios are banned from the police station!” Mom cut in. Dad grunted his agreement.

  “—but The Devil’s Trill escaped.” Dad, finally done with the news, folded the paper and set it aside. “I can’t even begin to imagine the cost of all the damage the fight caused. It wasn’t just the mall that got in their way. Three other buildings up and down the street got pummeled.”

  “From what I heard in last night’s news, those were mostly superficial damages,” Liz offered, her words partly muffled by the bagel in her mouth. I’d no idea why she got away with her table manners because Mom rode my ass with every mealtime infraction, no matter how small.

  “Not as bad as what happened to Emporium Grande.”

  “That’s really gross,” I grumbled at her, and she wrinkled her nose at me.

  Earlier that morning, after taking a shower, I tried to cut the bracelet up but failed. I wasn’t sure if it was because the scissors were just bad or if the bracelet was made of some bizarre material that couldn’t be damaged.

  Either way, the scissors did absolutely nothing to it. I’d been about to ask either Liz or Mom to use the knife on it, but breakfast was hijacked by last evening’s drama.

  I did my Saturday chores after breakfast. I worked as quickly as I could, so I’d have enough time to sort through my issues. When I went upstairs to my bedroom, I found Peter had called while I’d been in the garage, vacuuming the car.

  “How about a date?” he asked in an easy, almost sexy drawl. He even lowered his voice a little for maximum effect. My answering machine, even though it was ancient, absolutely loved his sound and seemed to conspire with him. I was this close to picking up the phone and calling him with an eager, breathless, “Yes!”

  As it was, though, I just listened to his message and then deleted it. I made a phone call, but not to Peter. Within seconds, I was listening to Mrs. Horace’s young-ish, sprightly voice at the other end of the line. Actually, Mrs. Horace was young still, having had Althea when she was only nineteen.

  “Oh, hi, Eric,” she said. “How’s the family?”

  “Good, thank you. How’re you, Mrs. Horace?”

  “Haven’t been in the way of all the weird stuff that’s been going around here lately. Thank God for that.”

  I nodded, sitting cross-legged on the floor and leaning against my bed. I caught sight of my bracelet and immediately sat on my left hand to keep it away from my line of vision. “You’re one of the lucky ones. And I’m sorry to hear about Grandma,” I said. I hoped that my tone was light.

  “It was scary, but we’re all glad she’s safe.”

  I nodded and fell silent. I was never good in small talk where adults were concerned.

  “So you want to talk to Althea?”

  “Yes, ma’am. If she’s available.”

  “I think she’s done with homework. Let me check.”

  I waited for a few moments, wondering what I should say to Althea. Calling her was a knee-jerk response to hearing Peter’s voice on my answering machine. It was avoidance, plain and simple.

  “Hello?”

  “How about a date?” I blurted out.

  She snorted. “I don’t go out with two-timing weasels. And I’m not doing your homework. Try again.”

  I looked down and stared at the weathered floorboards.

  Normally I’d be fiddling with something, using my free hand, but I continued to sit on my left hand despite its growing numbness. It was all I could do to observe the floorboards and remind myself my room needed sweeping. Jesus, what was that stain in front of my wardrobe? I blinked and then squinted for a better look, but no dice. Whatever it was, it looked pretty nasty.

  “Ice cream? We can share a banana split if you want.”

  There was a brief pause. “What’s wrong, Eric?” she asked—gently this time.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. You free after lunch?”

  “Uh—yeah, sure. I’ll tell Mom.” She paused again. “You’re not breaking up with Peter, are you?”

  I grimaced. “It’s only ice cream.”

  “Okay. Just checking. Girls sense these things, you know.”

  “What things?” I stretched both legs out since they were beginning to cramp up. I kept my left hand tucked under my butt, though.

  “Emo crap. Anything romantic, especially.”

  “Must be the estrogen. Okay, I’ll pick you up at one.”

  “On your bike? Forget it, Eric. I’m not sitting on your handlebars—like in one of those commercials for Valentine’s Day that makes me puke all over myself. I’ll pick you up in my car.”

  I was hoping she’d say that. “Okay,” I replied with fake reluctance. “See you then.”

>   After hanging up the phone, I picked up the scissors again. I’d left them on my bed, and tried my luck. I knew I wasn’t going to go anywhere with it, but I kept snipping and slicing away. I guess it was more symbolic than anything else.

  * * * *

  I’d completely underestimated both the size of the banana split and our combined ability to finish the whole thing. How annoying. The ice creamery should’ve put a warning on their menu—something like “Minimum Guest Requirement: Three or More Per Serving.” Had Peter been there, I was sure we wouldn’t have struggled with it the way we did.

  Althea tried—in her usual underhanded, girly way—to get me to talk about my “deal.” I didn’t take the bait, which made me crazy proud. Besides, what would I tell her?

  My boyfriend’s this freak who moves around at the speed of light, catching crooks here and there. I don’t know how to handle it. Hey, are you going to eat that?

  Oh, yeah—that would’ve been a really interesting exchange right there. For the most part, I just avoided giving her direct responses and told her I was going through a bit of a funk. I then coaxed her into entertaining me with stories—any kind that would keep my mind off Peter.

  To what extent she believed me wasn’t at all clear, but I’d caught her maybe twice looking at me strangely. It was the unnerving stare that girls usually gave—the narrowed, sidelong glance, the mouth pinched while thoughtfully sucking on a spoon. It was the look I’d always get from Liz whenever she caught me for something. A minute of that—that was all it usually took—and I’d be confessing to all kinds of sins, real and imagined. It’d be worse if Liz happened to be PMS-ing.

  I squirmed in my seat. “What?”

  Althea continued to stare me down. “Nothing.”

  Another effective girly weapon—the passive-aggressive one-word response.

  “Okay, fine.” I looked back down to scoop out another helping of ice cream and banana, painfully aware of her gaze, which I could feel like a lead weight all over me. “Althea, quit that. You’re getting a little too creepy for me.”

  “So what did Peter do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bull. What did he do, Eric?”

  I sighed, scooped out a large chunk of ice cream, and crammed it into my mouth. It bought me some time, and it proved to be the most delicious gag one could ever use in conversation. I flashed her a close-lipped smile, feeling excess ice cream trail down my chin. Althea watched me with a grimace of disgust.

  “Dude, I can’t help you if you don’t want to talk, and I know you’ve got boyfriend problems because you’ve got that look on your face.”

  “Whur mouf?”

  “What look? It’s hard to describe—closest would be deer-in-headlights.”

  I shrugged again and took in more ice cream before swallowing the previous spoonful. Some of my teeth began to hurt from the cold. Nuts. That meant another visit to the dentist.

  “Okay, I guess I can get used to this one-sided thing.”

  She downed a spoonful of ice cream, smacking her lips contentedly afterwards. Then she hesitated and turned serious as she regarded me. For a moment that seemed to stretch well past eternity, she appeared to struggle with herself—stared at me, chewed her lip, looked down at her ice cream, toyed with her food, and then glanced back at me with a frown.

  “What now?”

  “I know I can trust you, Eric.”

  I blinked. “Urhm?” Munch, munch.

  “I gotta show you something after this.”

  We tried. We did. It was a heroic, noble effort, but we had our asses kicked by a banana split. I wanted my money back, damn it, but the cashier only laughed at me and waved me off with a condescending, “I’ll see you again, cutie!”

  Whatever. Althea led me away, bypassing her car and dragging me down three blocks to the nearest bank. We stopped before the ATM. I stared at it with bad flashbacks hitting me between the eyes.

  “What’re we doing here?” I asked, crossing my arms tightly over my chest. I glanced at Althea and was surprised to find her watching me seriously.

  “Do you remember what I told you before—about me being able to talk to machines?” she asked.

  “Uh—yeah, sure.” I frowned at her and then shifted my gaze to the ATM’s little screen and the jerkily-moving animated bankcard that flitted back and forth. A cheery welcome in bright yellow text followed it like a comet tail.

  Althea stepped up to the ATM. “Here. Watch.” She fell silent and stared hard at the keypad while resting her left hand on it, her fingers relaxed. For a brief moment, nothing happened. Then there was a quick flash of light from the screen—as though it had short-circuited.

  “Hey, watch out!” I reached out to pull her away and then froze.

  Althea didn’t move, didn’t even appear as though she were aware of what had just happened. She continued to touch the keypad, her face a mask of pure concentration.

  Then the keys—their neat, symmetrical outlines glowed a faint pale blue. One second, two seconds, throbbing all that time before fading away until the keys were back to their old, plain, discolored selves. The screen flashed again before turning black. Then numbers appeared, moving from top to bottom, following a line, and scrolling in a never-ending train.

  “What the—” I breathed, gaping at the screen. My skin crawled. Images from the recent past suddenly flashed before my mind’s eye—images of Althea solving mathematical problems, her hand moving with insane speed, following a long, regular line down her notebook, her numbers filling up practically every bit of available space.

  The numbers continued their march in split-second time until everything went black once again. The process must’ve taken not much more than twenty seconds from start to finish. Althea took a deep breath and then turned to look at me, pulling her hand away. She didn’t at all appear upset or disturbed by what had just happened, but she seemed eager for my reaction—in a strangely detached way.

  “Did you see that?”

  “I did, yeah,” I stammered. “What the hell happened?”

  “I just accessed the bank’s database—extracted some kind of list. Not sure if they’re accounts or what since everything’s pretty fuzzy. I don’t remember the information, though. I haven’t mastered retention yet.”

  She nodded at the ATM. “And there’s no trace of me anywhere in the bank’s security system. Like I was some kind of ghost that just haunted the main computer and left nothing behind.”

  “How? All you did was touch the machine and—”

  “And talk to it. No, actually—more like I connected with the system. Yeah, that’s what happened. I told you before I could do that, remember?” Althea watched me closely. I couldn’t believe she was so impassive. It was almost as if she’d just taken on the qualities of a machine—a calculator—a central computer. It was a far, far cry from the sensitive girl I last saw at the cafeteria after the Happy Willows incident. And she certainly didn’t look and sound like the girl whom I’d just shared a banana split with.

  I took a faltering step back. “You connected with the machine?”

  “I can do it, yeah. My brain did, anyway.”

  “What about the camera? I’m sure it’s got you recorded.”

  Althea glanced at the small black square just above the screen and touched it with the same hand she’d used on the keypad. I heard a faint whirr that started out quietly and then grew louder. The camera had been hacked or maybe possessed. I pictured one of those old-fashioned reels, only a hundred times smaller, moving at high speed for a few seconds before fading back to a faint whirr and then complete silence. Althea looked back at me with a sassy little smile.

  “I just erased the film and killed the camera.”

  “What—you’re a criminal!”

  She shook her head. “I trust you, Eric. I know you won’t blab about this to anyone. I just had to show you what I can do.”

  “Nope—nuh-uh—this isn’t possible.”

  “It is, though. It�
�s been getting worse and worse—for a couple of weeks now, I can’t hold a calculator or use a computer without accidentally tapping into its main system and pulling stuff from it. Or just screwing around with information—changing data or moving stuff around, and I don’t even know how I do it. At the moment, I’m trying to learn how to control my power. It hasn’t been easy.”

  “It isn’t possible! There’s no power here!”

  Althea raised a brow. “Like it isn’t possible that Peter can move at the speed of light or jump from street level to the rooftop, right?”

  What the hell? “How’d you know that?” I demanded, my focus dimming.

  “He told me. He’s also aware that you know about him.”

  “Wha—he told you? How?”

  Althea shrugged and rubbed the back of her neck, flashing me a sheepish little grin. “When I accidentally hacked into his computer while playing Gargoyles and Demon Spawn with him—and found, you know, data that I wasn’t supposed to.” She winced, hunching her shoulders. “Peter caught me because I was panicking and couldn’t get out of his computer. I was stuck and couldn’t go back to the game. My character got obliterated by Head Gargoyle Gargantua and left Peter’s character to be turned into mercenary meatloaf for Gargantua’s harem.”

  “I always knew that was a messed up game,” I muttered in spite of myself.

  “So we had a conversation afterward. Yeah, your boyfriend took me out for dinner, but it wasn’t a romantic date, so don’t worry about me stealing him away.”

  “And?”

  “We outed ourselves to each other, I guess.” She looked at her shoes, frowning. “He told me that there are a few others like us. Somewhere—everywhere—and they don’t know it yet. We get into our powers—”

  “Powers—”

  “—at different times, supposedly, depending on genetics. He got to his months ago, and I’m just discovering mine. I guess it was nothing more than luck that I haven’t really mastered this computer power thing of mine, and whatever data I extracted from Peter’s hard drive didn’t stick with me. I remember the process, but I can’t remember the actual details of what I found. It’s weird—like waking up from a dream that you can’t remember the moment you open your eyes. It’s almost like shadows—ghosts—nothing tangible left, just traces of something.” She breathed in deeply and then looked up. Her expression was different. It was both unreadable and yet not, like she’d stepped back a few paces, leaving a phantom image of herself, which I recognized and yet didn’t because it seemed so unreal.